Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google Inc. - Reuters

NEW YORK, United States (Reuters):

Internet search giant Google is the best company to work for in America, according to Fortune magazine's annual list released on Monday.

Ranking second was Genentech, the biotech company that topped the list last year, followed by Wegmans Food Markets Inc, according to the magazine's 10th annual list of the '100 Best Companies to Work For'.

Number one

Google, based in Mountain View, California, ranks No. 1 largely due to amenities offered to employees, such as laundry, dry cleaning and automotive services, a swimming spa, gourmet meals, on-site massage and free on-site doctors, Fortune said.

The list was compiled for Fortune by the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco, using survey responses from more than 105,000 employees from 446 companies.

Two-thirds of a company's score was based on what employees said about attitudes toward management, job satisfaction and camaraderie, and the balance came from company responses regarding demographic make-up, pay and benefits, management philosophy, communications, opportunities, diversity programmes and the like.

Fourth on the list was the Container Store, where sales employees are paid 50 to 100 per cent above the industry average; Whole Foods Market, which pays full health care coverage for employees, as do 15 other companies on the list, and Network Appliance, where 95 per cent of employees have flexible schedules, Fortune said.

Rounding out the top 10 were S.C. Johnson & Son, Boston Consulting Group, Methodist Hospital System and W.L. Gore & Associates, the magazine said.

Of the top 100 companies, almost a third offer on-site child care, while 22 offer fully-paid sabbaticals, Fortune said.

Usual benefits

Some companies offered unusual benefits, such as Arnold & Porter which offers referral fees of $15,000 if employees recommend a potential new hire who gets a job, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, where newlyweds or employees who register a domestic partnership get an extra week's vacation.

At Houston-based homebuilders David Weekley Homes, employees get their birthdays off.

Compared with 18 companies on the first such list a decade ago, 82 companies on this list offered telecommuting. Ten years ago, 28 companies offered domestic-partner benefits but now the figure is 70, Fortune said.

Average pay ranged from a high of US$181,099 at Nixon Peabody, a Boston-based law firm, to US$33,559 at American Fidelity Assurance, an insurance company based in Oklahoma City.